Liberating Paris

by Linda Bloodworth Thomason

  Suddenly, the sun was so luminous against the windshield, he could hardly see. It was bouncing off the cars that whisked by him, like flashbulbs blinding him in glittering succession, like paparazzi recording his ill-planned, pathetic secret mission. Wood was now being peppered by a light that seemed almost as glorious as the one that had appeared through the stained-glass window on the day of his father’s funeral—the day the air had turned a golden yellow and contained within itself a hint of glory or redemption or death or something—he wasn’t sure. He steered the car as well as he could off the road and into a gas station. And there he sat for a while, hunched over, collecting his breath in his two cupped hands. Suddenly he was struck with a feeling of relief—and not just because he wasn’t going to die here on this highway—but relief for his own father’s death and the fact that he could no longer disappoint this good and loving man. Wood got out and walked, unsteady, toward the entrance and a sign that read FRIED CHICKEN, LIVE BAIT AND DVDS. But all he bought was a diet soda and some Tums. Then he walked back to his car, got in, steered the ancient Austin-Healy out into the traffic again, and turned toward home. Finally, the pain in his chest was going away. After a while, he shifted into an even smoother gear, grateful to be alive and back on the ride.

  Mavis had no more hung up the phone with Milan than Mary Paige Kenyon, a short, stocky girl with yellow hair and a plump Scandinavian face, was standing at her counter. Mary Paige had grown up in Paris, but because Mavis was ten years her senior, the two women hardly knew each other. After going away to seminary school, and serving as a missionary in the Philippines and El Salvador, Mary Paige had now come home to care for her ailing mother. Mavis couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was some kind of understanding in Mary Paige’s eyes that always made Mavis not want to charge her for whatever it was she ordered.

  “Well, Miss Mary Paige Kenyon, twelfth customer of the day. I guess you know that means your Danish is free.”

  Mary Paige looked at Mavis for a long time, her eyes filling with what Mavis assumed was gratitude. Then she began to sob, large, shoulder-heaving tears, till eventually she ended up gasping for air.

  Mavis consoled her, “It’s okay. It’s just a Danish. Good Lord, I’m glad I didn’t give you a free blueberry scone. I might’ve killed you.”

  Mary Paige laughed and apologized as Mavis guided her to one of the little café tables. Luckily, there were no other customers, allowing Mary Paige to tell Mavis her story. She was sorry to trouble her with it, but there was no one else she could talk to—at least not anyone who she felt would understand. Of course, she hadn’t intended to tell Mavis either, but the unexpected kindness of making her the free Danish winner of the day had unleashed a river of emotion that was apparently just waiting for the right cue—the same way it happened when Sheriff Serious West, who could’ve been a preacher as easily as a lawman, used to get in the face of whoever he was interrogating and say, “Isn’t there somethin’ you want to get off your chest, son? Somethin’ that’s been lyin’ heavy on your heart for a long time and could be lifted right here, right now; all you have to do is start at the beginning and tell Serious how you got to this terrible, sad place.” You could almost hear the church organist playing in the background as the men broke and relieved themselves of their burdens. That’s pretty much the way Mary Paige’s story came out, too. Like it was something that just couldn’t be kept inside any longer, once someone had offered even a hint of sympathy or understanding.

  It seemed the First Baptist Church and its minister, Harlan B. Pillow Jr., had decided not to challenge the policy of the Southern Baptist Convention that prevents women from filling the pulpit—had, in fact, denied Mary Paige the chance to apply for associate minister of her hometown church on the basis of nothing more than the fact that she was not going to be able to come up with a penis. Mavis was incensed. She no longer attended church herself, but she and her mother had gone to the First Baptist regularly when she was growing up. And Brother Pillow’s daddy, Harlan B. Pillow Sr., had screamed so loud and carried on so long about the fires of hell and damnation that he had scared Mavis and most of the other children half to death. Mavis had sat in the pew, next to her mother, wearing her little hat (always a hat) with her freshly washed white gloves and tried not to listen—tried instead to concentrate on things like what kind of salad dressing she would have once they made it to Cotter’s Restaurant and Motel buffet. Brother Pillow would be screaming about little children who, even if they were good, would burn in hell if they were not washed in the blood of the lamb—and Mavis would be reciting, in her mind, Thousand Island or Ranch. Thousand Island or Ranch. Thousand Island or Ranch. Not listening. Not listening. Not listening.

  Mavis knew several adults in Paris who had actually sought psychiatric help as a result of their time with Brother Pillow. Of course, they had gone to another town to do it. There was a retired psychiatrist in Paris who, it was said, was still willing to see special cases, but almost no one went to him because word had gotten out that the more you told him your troubles, the more he hardly said anything. Anyway, it had especially puzzled Mavis when Brother Pillow said he was doing the Lord’s work. She couldn’t help wondering how he could’ve gotten a job working for someone so important, when she wouldn’t have hired him for anything. But the part she dreaded the most each week was when the good brother called all the young Sunday schoolers to come down front—and finally got around to saying something nice, like “Jesus loves all the little children.” Only it didn’t sound like a compliment, or a good thing at all, anymore. It sounded more like a threat, as in, Jesus loves you and you better love him back, or else!

  As Mavis got older, it became more and more clear to her that Brother Pillow wasn’t speaking for anyone but himself. And she finally stopped attending services altogether. All the talk about women keeping quiet in church and following the leadership of their husbands didn’t sit quite right with her, either. She and her mother made all their own decisions and looked after themselves quite nicely. Why should they have to let a man lead them? Mavis’s dad, the man they loved more than anyone, hadn’t even had sense enough to come in out of the rain.

  However, Mavis still felt that she was a religious person. Only she had decided to keep her religion inside her head. She didn’t need a certain day or a place to go, to express it. Or any people to share it with. And she certainly didn’t need some sweaty, red-faced preacher threatening her. Her religion was personal and private and tied to who she was. And nobody could attack it or question it, as long as they didn’t know about it. It was when you put a sign out front and started attracting people and fighting over which one of you was right, that you got into trouble—the way her new friend was in trouble right now.

  Mary Paige loved the Lord profoundly, had traveled the world on his behalf and was burning to tell others about it. It was the only thing she was burning to do. The rest of her, the regular person side, was shy, retiring, quiet. If she were denied this, then really, what was left? Taking care of her ailing mother. Growing old alone. And eventually, she would die, too, and all the beautifully unique religious thoughts, all the unspoken words and prayers that bore her personal imprint, would go with her.

  Mavis didn’t know how it happened, but when she looked down at her lap, she was holding Mary Paige’s hand. And then she heard her own voice saying, “I don’t know what we’re going to do about this. But I promise you, we’re not going to take it lying down.”

  Mary Paige nodded, grateful. Then, she bit into her Danish and smiled at Mavis, feeling renewed and wiping a little sugar from her pretty, turned-up mouth.

  It was almost 11 A.M. and Slim McIlmore was still under the covers. She had gotten up earlier to feed her dead husband’s dogs and then retreated back to her bed, barely bothering to shake off the snow.

  The Brown Meanness that sometimes settled on her had come again, as she knew it would, and this time she would not have her husband’s powerful, soothing presence to take refuge i
n. This time, because she was weakened from her loss, she would have no resources to fight it off. And she was sure it would take a little more of her each day, as it always did, until she would not even bother to eat the soup that Milan often left on her porch and eventually would have to get someone else to feed the dogs. And then would probably not even check to see if that person had done it—and finally would not even care if the dogs actually died and her along with them. That’s how the Brown Meanness worked. That’s how cruel it could get. It wasn’t black or gray, colors that most people associated with depression. For Slim, black was night, which was exciting. And gray was up, forward, toward the sky. But brown was down, like the ground, muddy, hopeless. Dust. Nothing. Slim’s mood was brown. It was something she had dealt with all her life. Something she despised—this evil, punishing shroud that kept her, not in darkness, which could have signaled a final resolution, but instead let in just enough light to keep her in the game. It stole precious days, weeks, months from an otherwise idyllic marriage and irreplaceable time with her son. No one had known the extent of her suffering, except her husband, her son, and her housekeeper, Mae Ethel.

  Slim was a person who thought that every little thing about every living soul did not need to be seen or known. And the Brown Meanness, well, that was private. Her personal cross to bear. And if and when someday it all became too much, she would take matters into her own hands and leave this world, just as her mother had done, when Slim was only thirteen. Emily Longchamps, wearing her winter coat, gloves, and hat, had slipped into the family car on Christmas Eve and started the engine and sat there with the garage door down until she fell asleep and toppled across the steering wheel with her head and shoulders sagging and her hat now resting upside down on the dashboard—had done it with her three daughters and her husband sleeping only yards away, not even bothering to leave a note—so, as Slim thought later, you can imagine how much pain she was in, this loving mother and wife, to hurt her family in such a brutal way and forever ruin Christmas.

  Slim reached out and picked up a small photograph from the nightstand. In it, she and her sisters, Lucy and Ava, were having tea on the porch of the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs. They looked like young women who, after just having had their first bite of life, are now awaiting the main course and please don’t be stingy with the pepper. Slim studied this early rendition of her face. In the picture, she looked slightly amused, head tilted down (just like her son to be), with eyes that stared seductively past the felt brim of her hat, past the person who is making the photograph and into her own eyes—sixty years later.

  The Longchamps girls looked good. They could just as easily have been sitting with Ernest Hemingway or Henri Matisse in another Paris than the one they grew up in, and no one would have questioned it. She remembered the day vividly. The way she and her sisters had giggled at the men dressed like gangsters at the table behind them—the good-looking waiter spilling wine on Slim’s new suit and the tears when she announced she was marrying Wood McIlmore. Of course, they all adored him, the town golden boy who played football and carried Rupert Brook in his coat pocket. Just the same, this was their baby sister, only nineteen, and he was going off to war. It was all too sudden.

  But, oh, the fun they had, visiting her in Biloxi. Slim, a new war bride, still radiant from her first brush with real physical love, and later, much later, Lucy and Ava holding her hands while her husband helped deliver their beautiful, upside-down boy—blessed whole years of happiness together, raucous laughter, a capsized boat on the Champanelle River, black-and-white photographs—boxes of them with dressed-up people sitting at long tables, holding cigarettes and cocktails at the races in Hot Springs and nightclubs from Havana to New York, Wood in a cast at graduation (was it Sun Valley or a fall from Dapplegreys?). College dorms, Roman ruins, hot flashes, Charlene at the Beauty Hut suggesting ways to cover up her gray—what gray? Suddenly the little boy who delivered her newspaper turned into the middle-aged policeman who stopped her for speeding. And Mister Lindon, the butcher at the A&P who sliced her steaks and ordered her seafood, wasn’t there anymore. And Mae Ethel, her housekeeper, Miss Purtle, her seamstress, all retired, all disappeared. People disappearing everywhere—sisters dying, son gone, holding onto her husband, holding onto love, dancing, always dancing, keep moving…gone.

  The fact that it was over so soon had caught Slim completely off guard. Why hadn’t she known about the brutal swiftness of life—the sheer velocity at which love, triumph, pain, and death all travel? It happened to the people around her every day. And yet, she hadn’t even guessed that she herself would be subject to life’s naturally evolving holocaust.

  She traded the picture of Lucy and Ava for the one she liked best of her husband. She was glad the sun was in his eyes, because he would like that. He seemed like a man who had always just been outside. She remembered how deliciously cold his clothes felt and that he often smelled like the woods with a little Vitalis and pipe tobacco thrown in. She closed her own eyes. He was standing in their kitchen now, in the middle of the day. “I just needed to come by and see my pretty girl.” Now they were out dancing somewhere and he, after all these years, was still aroused—his lips, touching her ear, “Let’s go home.” Later, as always, he would lie spent across the top of her, whispering, “My God, Slim, my God.”

  A strange pair of blue-veined hands put the picture back on the bedside table. She was still a girl in her head. Still madly, dramatically, in love with the boy they had just buried in an old man’s body. She wasn’t going to wallow in self-pity or bother anyone about it. But she knew this was nothing time could heal. Just as she knew that she would not be able to face the blank canvas of another day. Especially not now, with the Brown Meanness upon her.

  Mavis and Milan were having coffee at the little table where Mary Paige had sat earlier. Mavis told only a little of her new friend’s travails because Milan seemed upset. She was sure that Wood had dreamed last night about Duff because he had been laughing softly in his sleep. Mavis said, knowing Wood, that he was probably talking to his horse. Rudy passed by carrying a tray of freshly turned-out rolls and asked Mavis, tongue in cheek, if he could get her anything to make her two-hour break more enjoyable. And Mavis answered that yes he could, he could explain how he gets those popovers to puff up so big when he can’t get that little thing of his to do hardly anything. And Rudy had staggered off, mortified. That was the problem with Mavis—overkill. Even without the crazy hormones, you could just be kidding with her and the next thing you knew, you were looking for an emergency room, trying to hold your intestines in.

  Milan had stood up to go when Harlan B. Pillow Jr. arrived an hour early to pick up his sandwich. Rudy started to wait on him, but Mavis crossed and told Rudy that she would handle it, and Rudy stepped aside, afraid, and Milan sat back down, not wanting to miss what was coming. Despite his name, Harlan Jr. was no tall-haired evangelist in some cheesy leisure suit. He was a good-looking man, well turned out, with an up-to-date haircut. Unlike his father, and many of his fellow preachers, he did not call other parishioners brother this and brother that. He used their regular names and affected a casual winning manner that was more akin to a good motivational speaker than a man of the cloth.

  “How are you today, Mavis?”

  “I’m okay. Your usual?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And you might throw in one of those brownies, too.” Then he added, “But don’t tell Mrs. Pillow. She’s a terror when I get off my diet.” After that, he smiled as he did at the end of every sentence, hoping to deter any unpleasantness. Mavis frowned. “Is that a problem?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Mrs. Pillow. Does she actually get to talk at home?”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “I’m not sure you do, either. In spite of the fact that I’ve been doing my best to make a nice sandwich for you for what—ten, fifteen years now?”

  Harlan started to speak, but Mavis interrupted, “Excuse me.” She turned and y
elled to Rudy, “Turkey and Old Glory on white sourdough, easy mayo, one fudge espresso brownie, large 7-UP, no ice, walkin’.”

  Then Mavis turned back to Harlan with a smile of her own. “We’re gonna work on that order for you, Reverend. And just as soon as Mary Paige Kenyon is allowed to stand in your pulpit, you can come back over and pick it up.”

  Harlan Pillow Jr. wasn’t smiling anymore. He stiffened, momentarily unable to shake off this attack on himself and his church. He seemed to sense, almost immediately, that this was no small gauntlet being thrown down. Like other smart-minded, affable men who made it their business to keep women in their place, Harlan was proud that he was a perfect gentleman about it, sure of his own rightness. And being a man who can assess things quickly, he was also already thinking that Mavis was a woman to be reckoned with.

  Slim was on her knees in the gardening section of the Paris Fed-Mart Superstore. After examining several cans of poison, she finally decided on an econo-size and went in search of a clerk. After a while, she finally spotted one—a fat-cheeked girl whose mouth hung slightly open, in a permanent state of noncuriosity, and who said, trying to feign excitement, the exact words on her name tag: “Hi, I’m Kelly. Can I help you?”

  “Yes, Kelly, I’m having a problem with my yard. Actually, it’s gophers. I think there’s maybe ten or twelve of them. Can you tell me, would this be enough poison to kill, say, ten or twelve gophers?”

  Kelly looked at the can, dumbly, like she had never seen anything like this before in her life.

  “Gosh, I dunno.” She examined the label. “All it says here is, if swallowed, what’s this word?”

  “Induce.”

  “Yeah. Vomiting immediately.”

  “Thank you, Kelly.” Slim smiled and took the can back. Then as she was heading toward the massive row of checkout counters, she ran into Sidney Garfinkel, carrying a broom.